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070 Obsessions
The background is white. ; Panel 1 Zane is sitting at Virgil's desk, holding the pin in one hand and looking over a large book. Mercy is sitting on the desk next to him, her wings spread out in front of her in a relaxed position. Leaning over the book and looking focused, he says "If Virgil belonged to some secret society, maybe tonight will shed some light on why he kept to himself at the end. Meanwhile, I can't make much sense out of his charts." ; Panel 2. Looking anxious, Zane continues "I can't shake the feeling it's all connected somehow to my *door pattern.* *Terrible things* happen when doors aren't shut. I can *sense* it. I just... haven't discovered the *larger* pattern yet!" Mercy looks on, making a soft "eee" noise. ; ; Panel 3. The book that Zane is reading is a collection of complicated, hand-drawn family trees with annotations in Virgil's elegant hand. On the top of the left page is one tree that begins at the top with a rectangle with three lines coming from it. The leftmost line splits into two lines with dots at the end, and there is a line between these two dots. A line runs down from that line, turning into another dot. Two other dots are lined up to the left of that third dot, with lines going down from them to three other dots. Back to the rectangle, the center of the three lines is covered by the speech bubble, but it appears to end in a dot that goes no further. The third line from the rectangle ends in a dot, with three lines and three dots coming from it. There are notes all over the page, but they cannot be made out, except for two dates that appear to be 1720-1739. On the other page, there are three diagrams with annotations. The leftmost diagram shows a circle and a triangle connected by a line, and from this line another line runs down and ends in a dot. Beneath the circle is a line that ends in an upside down triangle and has two short lines intersecting it. The triangle at the top has a line that comes from it that has two short lines intersecting it and leads to a bracket with three short lines going down from it. The rightmost diagram shows two squares connected with a line and a line down leading to four dots, and one of those dots has another line going down leading to three dots, two of which are connected with a dotted line. At the bottom there is a large circle with four lines going to the right connected to four dots. The notes cannot be made out for the most part, but I think one note, underlined several times, says "Why did Zanes move 100 years ago?" Zane looks at the book as he says "Maybe Virgil was hunting for patterns too, in other places! He seemed obsessed with *lineage*. Some of these scribblings about bloodlines go back to the 1700s." ; Panel 4. Zane holds up a large piece of paper that has been folded several times and is covered with more of the graphs made of circles, rectangles and lines. He looks at it with a perplexed look on his face as he says "There were Zanes who moved to this part of America in the 1760s. Founded *Zanesville, Ohio* to the north. I never knew! European explorers and traders... Settler families and native peoples... Why was he keeping all this?" ; Panel 5. Smiling, Zane looks up from the papers and says "Maybe this was just Virgil's odd obsession. Maybe knowing where he *came* from made him feel safe. After all, quote, those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, unquote." Mercy is still sitting on the table beside him, as if she's watching. ; Panel 6. Zane looks to the side, an abashed look on his face, and says "... He said to a bat he found on the sidewalk." Mercy makes an "eeeee!" noise, her mouth open and showing two tiny fangs.